US20110320886A1 - Storage system that finds occurrence of power source failure - Google Patents
Storage system that finds occurrence of power source failure Download PDFInfo
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- US20110320886A1 US20110320886A1 US13/227,639 US201113227639A US2011320886A1 US 20110320886 A1 US20110320886 A1 US 20110320886A1 US 201113227639 A US201113227639 A US 201113227639A US 2011320886 A1 US2011320886 A1 US 2011320886A1
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- G—PHYSICS
- G11—INFORMATION STORAGE
- G11B—INFORMATION STORAGE BASED ON RELATIVE MOVEMENT BETWEEN RECORD CARRIER AND TRANSDUCER
- G11B27/00—Editing; Indexing; Addressing; Timing or synchronising; Monitoring; Measuring tape travel
- G11B27/36—Monitoring, i.e. supervising the progress of recording or reproducing
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- G—PHYSICS
- G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
- G06F—ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING
- G06F11/00—Error detection; Error correction; Monitoring
- G06F11/07—Responding to the occurrence of a fault, e.g. fault tolerance
- G06F11/14—Error detection or correction of the data by redundancy in operation
- G06F11/1402—Saving, restoring, recovering or retrying
- G06F11/1415—Saving, restoring, recovering or retrying at system level
- G06F11/1443—Transmit or communication errors
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- G—PHYSICS
- G11—INFORMATION STORAGE
- G11B—INFORMATION STORAGE BASED ON RELATIVE MOVEMENT BETWEEN RECORD CARRIER AND TRANSDUCER
- G11B27/00—Editing; Indexing; Addressing; Timing or synchronising; Monitoring; Measuring tape travel
- G11B27/002—Programmed access in sequence to a plurality of record carriers or indexed parts, e.g. tracks, thereof, e.g. for editing
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- G—PHYSICS
- G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
- G06F—ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING
- G06F11/00—Error detection; Error correction; Monitoring
- G06F11/07—Responding to the occurrence of a fault, e.g. fault tolerance
- G06F11/16—Error detection or correction of the data by redundancy in hardware
- G06F11/20—Error detection or correction of the data by redundancy in hardware using active fault-masking, e.g. by switching out faulty elements or by switching in spare elements
- G06F11/2002—Error detection or correction of the data by redundancy in hardware using active fault-masking, e.g. by switching out faulty elements or by switching in spare elements where interconnections or communication control functionality are redundant
- G06F11/2007—Error detection or correction of the data by redundancy in hardware using active fault-masking, e.g. by switching out faulty elements or by switching in spare elements where interconnections or communication control functionality are redundant using redundant communication media
- G06F11/201—Error detection or correction of the data by redundancy in hardware using active fault-masking, e.g. by switching out faulty elements or by switching in spare elements where interconnections or communication control functionality are redundant using redundant communication media between storage system components
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- G—PHYSICS
- G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
- G06F—ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING
- G06F11/00—Error detection; Error correction; Monitoring
- G06F11/07—Responding to the occurrence of a fault, e.g. fault tolerance
- G06F11/16—Error detection or correction of the data by redundancy in hardware
- G06F11/20—Error detection or correction of the data by redundancy in hardware using active fault-masking, e.g. by switching out faulty elements or by switching in spare elements
- G06F11/2015—Redundant power supplies
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- G—PHYSICS
- G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
- G06F—ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING
- G06F11/00—Error detection; Error correction; Monitoring
- G06F11/07—Responding to the occurrence of a fault, e.g. fault tolerance
- G06F11/16—Error detection or correction of the data by redundancy in hardware
- G06F11/20—Error detection or correction of the data by redundancy in hardware using active fault-masking, e.g. by switching out faulty elements or by switching in spare elements
- G06F11/2053—Error detection or correction of the data by redundancy in hardware using active fault-masking, e.g. by switching out faulty elements or by switching in spare elements where persistent mass storage functionality or persistent mass storage control functionality is redundant
- G06F11/2089—Redundant storage control functionality
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- G—PHYSICS
- G11—INFORMATION STORAGE
- G11B—INFORMATION STORAGE BASED ON RELATIVE MOVEMENT BETWEEN RECORD CARRIER AND TRANSDUCER
- G11B2220/00—Record carriers by type
- G11B2220/20—Disc-shaped record carriers
- G11B2220/25—Disc-shaped record carriers characterised in that the disc is based on a specific recording technology
- G11B2220/2508—Magnetic discs
- G11B2220/2516—Hard disks
Abstract
One or more switches are interposed between a controller portion and a storage device. When transmission of a command to a certain storage device fails, a command is transmitted starting from an upstream side to a downstream side of a path between the controller portion and the switch to which the certain storage device is connected, and when command transmission fails while transmitting a command from a kth switch (k is an integer of 0 or more) which is connected to a (k+1)th switch and is one level upstream of the (k+1)th switch or from any port of the controller portion, it is determined that a failure has occurred in a power source that supplies power to the (k+1)th switch.
Description
- This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/869,260, filed Aug. 26, 2010, which is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/068,205, filed on Feb. 4, 2008, which claims the benefit of Japanese Patent Application number 2007-228816, filed on Sep. 4, 2007, each of which is incorporated by reference as if fully set forth herein.
- The present invention generally relates to finding of a power source failure that occurs in a storage system.
- The technology disclosed in, for example, Japanese Published Unexamined Patent Application No. 2006-126972 is known as the technology related to finding of a power source failure in a storage system. According to the technology described in Japanese Published Unexamined Patent Application No. 2006-126972, the power source monitoring portion of the HDD (hard disk drive) detects the occurrence of a failure in the power source of the HDD, and the power source monitoring portion informs a control portion within the storage system of the failure.
- As the configuration of the storage system, for example, there is sometimes adopted a configuration in which one or more units equipped with a plurality of media drives (referred to as “expansion enclosures” hereinafter for convenience) are connected in series to a unit having a controller (referred to as “base enclosure” hereinafter for convenience) via components such as cables or backboards. In other words, there is adopted a configuration in which a base enclosure and one or more expansion enclosures are connected in multi-stages. According to this type of configuration, the storage capacity of the storage system can be changed by changing the number of expansion enclosures.
- As this type of storage system, there is, for example, a storage system having a configuration shown in
FIG. 1 . - For example, n number of expansion enclosures 3-1 through 3-n (n is an integer of 1 or more (in the illustrated example, n is an integer of 2 or more)) are connected to a
base enclosure 10. - The
base enclosure 10 has duplex controllers (abbreviated as “CTL” hereinafter) 1A and 1B. TheCTLs 1A and 1B have drive I/F control circuits F control circuit 2A controls drive I/F circuits 6A-1 through 6A-n and the drive I/F control circuit 2B controls drive I/F circuits 6B-1 through 6B-n. For example, the drive I/F control circuits - The expansion enclosure 3-n has duplex AC/DC power sources (simply referred to as “power sources” hereinafter) 4A-n and 4B-n, duplex
drive control boards 5A-n and 5B-n, and m+1 number of media drives 8-n-0 through 8-n-m (m is an integer of 0 or more (in the illustrated example, m is an integer of 1 or more)). Thedrive control boards 5A-n and 5B-n have, respectively, the drive I/F circuits 6A-n and 6B-n, which are interface circuits for the media drives 8-n-0 through 8-n-m. The media drives 8-n-0 through 8-n-m are connected to each of the drive I/F circuits 6A-n and 6B-n. Thepower sources 4A-n and 4B-n convert AC power supplied from AC power sources (commercial power sources) 7A-n and 7B-n respectively into DC power and then supply the DC power to the drive I/F circuits 6A-n and 6B-n, and media drives 8-n-0 through 8-n-m. - The drive I/
F control circuit 2A (and 2B) of thebase enclosure 10 is connected in series to the drive I/F circuits 6A-1 through 6A-n (and 6B-1 through 6B-n) of the respective expansion enclosures 3-1 through 3-n viafiber channel cables 11A-1 through 11A-n (and 11B-1 through 11B-n). Accordingly, a fiberchannel signal line 11A (and 11B) is formed (specifically, for example, an FC-AL (Fiber Channel-Arbitrated Loop) having the drive I/F circuits 6A-1 through 6A-n (and 6B-1 through 6B-n) and thefiber channel cables 11A-1 through 11A-n (and 11B-1 through 11B-n) is configured). - In this type of storage system, when a failure occurs in the
power sources 4A-1 through 4A-n and 4B-1 through 4B-n of the expansion enclosures 3-1 through 3-n, it is demanded that the failure is detected and a report thereof is output. - The following method can be considered as a method for realizing such detection and output.
- Specifically, as shown in
FIG. 1 , in the expansion enclosures 3-1 through 3-n thedrive control boards 5A-1 through 5A-n and 5B-1 through 5B-n are provided respectively with power sourceabnormality detection circuits 9A-1 through 9A-n and 9B-1 through 9B-n that monitor voltage of power wires 15-1 through 15-n. In the expansion enclosure 3-n, for example, the power sourceabnormality detection circuits 9A-n and 9B-n are supplied with power from thepower sources 4A-n and 4B-n respectively. The power sourceabnormality detection circuits 9A-1 through 9A-n and 9B-1 and 9B-n are connected respectively to the drive I/F control circuits cables 13A-1 through 13A-n and 13B-1 through 13B-n in which signals indicating a power source failure flow (“power source abnormality informing cable” hereinafter). In the expansion enclosure 3-n, for example, when a failure occurs in both thepower sources 4A-n and 4B-n, the power sourceabnormality detection circuits 9A-n and 9B-n detect the abnormality of thepower sources 4A-n and 4B-n (decrease of voltage in the power wire 15-n), and transmit the signals indicating the power source abnormality to the drive I/F control circuits cables 13A-n and 13B-n. When both the drive I/F control circuits abnormality detection circuits 9A-n and 9B-n respectively, the occurrence of power source failures, which are failures of both the power sourceabnormality detection circuits 9A-n and 9B-n, is found. - However, according to this configuration, the following problems arise.
- (1) The power source abnormality reporting cable is required in each drive I/F circuit. For this reason, it is difficult to form wiring within the storage system. Furthermore, the greater the number of levels of the drive I/F circuits, the longer the distance between the controller and the drive I/F circuit at the end, and, since the there are a large number of power source abnormality reporting cables, a high-performance circuit might be required in the controller in order to receive a report on a power source failure.
- (2) The power source abnormality detection circuit is required in each drive I/F circuit. Power consumption is high due to the provision of the power source abnormality detection circuits.
- (3) As described above, the power source abnormality reporting cable and the power source abnormality detection circuit are required in each drive I/F circuit. For this reason, the number of parts increases as the number of the cables and circuits increases, whereby the number of targets to be maintained (or inspected, for example) is increased.
- It is therefore an object of the present invention to be able to find the occurrence of a power source failure in each drive I/F circuit by means of a controller portion even if the drive I/F circuit does not have the power source abnormality detection circuit or power source abnormality reporting cable.
- Another object of the present invention will become clear from the following descriptions.
- One or more switches are interposed between a controller portion and a storage device. When transmission of a command to a certain storage device fails, a command is transmitted from an upstream side to a downstream side in a path between the controller portion and the switch to which this storage device is connected (the upstream side is on the side near the controller portion). When command transmission fails while transmitting a command from a kth switch (k is an integer of 0 or more) which is connected to a (k+1)th switch and is one level upstream of the (k+1)th switch or from any of the ports of the controller portion, it is determined that a failure has occurred at a power source that supplies power to the (k+1)th switch.
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FIG. 1 shows an example of the configuration of a storage system in which a base enclosure is connected in series to one or more expansion enclosures by means of an FC-AL; -
FIG. 2 shows an example of the configuration of a storage system according to a first embodiment of the present invention; -
FIG. 3 shows a flow of failure check processing performed in the first embodiment of the present invention; -
FIG. 4A shows examples of transmission of failure report information from a controller to a SVP and of a screen that is displayed by the SVP on the basis of the failure report information; -
FIG. 4B shows examples of transmission of information from the SVP to a maintenance center device and of information that is output by the maintenance center device on the basis of the information; -
FIG. 5 shows an example of the configuration of a storage system according to a second embodiment of the present invention; -
FIG. 6 shows a flow of failure check processing performed in the second embodiment of the present invention; -
FIG. 7 shows an example of the configuration of a storage system according to a third embodiment of the present invention; -
FIG. 8 shows a flow of failure check processing performed in the third embodiment of the present invention; -
FIG. 9 shows a part of an example of the configuration of a storage system according to a fourth embodiment of the present invention; -
FIG. 10 shows a part of the rest of the configuration example of the storage system; -
FIG. 11 shows a flow of failure check processing performed when a SAS path failure is detected by a third SAS signal path in the fourth embodiment of the present invention; -
FIG. 12 shows an example of the configuration of a storage system according to a fifth embodiment of the present invention; and -
FIG. 13 shows a flow of processing performed when a SAS path failure is detected according to the fifth embodiment of the present invention. - In
Embodiment 1, a storage system has one or more switches, a controller portion, two or more storage devices, and one or more power sources that supply power to the one or more switches. The controller portion has two or more ports that are connected respectively via two or more links to two or more ports of at least one of the one or more switches. The two or more storage devices are connected to the two or more ports out of a plurality of ports of the one or more switches. When transmission of a command to a storage device selected from among the two or more storage devices fails, the controller portion transmits a command, starting from an upstream side to a downstream side of a path between the controller portion and the switch to which the selected storage device is connected. When command transmission fails while transmitting a command from a kth switch (k is an integer of 0 or more) which is connected to a (k+1)th switch and is connected one level upstream of the (k+1)th switch or from any of the ports of the controller portion, the controller portion determines that a failure has occurred in a power source that supplies power to the (k+1)th switch. - In Embodiment 2, according to
Embodiment 1, the controller portion has a first controller having a first sub-controller, and a second controller having a second sub-controller. The one or more switches have n number of first switches (n is an integer of 1 or more, n (k+1)) that are connected to the first sub-controller in the form of a cascade, and n number of second switches that are connected to the second sub-controller in the form of a cascade. Each of the power sources supplies power to one or more pairs of the first and second switches. When command transmission fails even when using a kth first switch which is connected to the (k+1)th switch and is one level upstream of the (k+1)th switch or using any port of the first sub-controller in a first path between the first sub-controller and the first switch to which the selected storage device is connected, the second controller transmits a command from a kth second switch or the second sub-controller to a (k+1)th second switch in a second path between the second sub-controller and the second switch to which the selected storage device is connected. When transmission of a command from the kth second switch or any port of the second sub-controller fails (for example, when the links cannot be ensured or when no response is returned within a certain period of time even when the links are ensured to perform command transmission), the first or second controller determines that a failure has occurred in the power sources that supply power to the (k+1)th first and second switches. When transmission of a command from the kth second switch or any port of the second sub-controller succeeds (for example, when a response is returned within a certain period of time after the links are secured to perform command transmission), the first or second controller determines that a failure related to a (k+1)th link on the first path has occurred. - In
Embodiment 3, according to Embodiment 2, after transmission of a command from the kth second switch or any port of the second sub-controller fails, the first controller transmits a command toward the (k+1)th first switch or a first switch at a stage posterior to the (k+1)th first switch, and when the command transmission succeeds, the first controller determines that a failure has occurred temporarily in the power sources that supply power to the (k+1)th first and second switches. - In Embodiment 4, according to
Embodiment 3, when transmission of a command toward the (k+1)th first switch or the first switch posterior to the (k+1)th first switch succeeds, the first controller executes initialization of the first sub-controller. - In Embodiment 5, according to at least one of Embodiments 2 through 4, after transmission of a command from the kth second switch or any port of the second sub-controller fails, the first controller transmits a command toward the (k+1)th first switch or the first switch posterior to the (k+1)th first switch. When the command transmission fails, the second controller transmits a command toward the (k+1)th second switch or the second switch posterior to the (k+1)th second switch. When the command transmission fails, the first or second controller determines that a failure has occurred in the power sources that supply power to the (k+1)th first and second switches.
- In Embodiment 6, according to Embodiment 5, when transmission of a command toward the (k+1)th second switch or the second switch posterior to the (k+1)th second switch fails, the first or second controller determines that a failure related to a (k+1)th link has occurred.
- In Embodiment 7, according to at least one of Embodiments 2 through 6, the one or more switches have n number of third switches that are connected to the first sub-controller in the form of a cascade, and n number of fourth switches that are connected to the second sub-controller in the form of a cascade. The plurality of power sources have a first power source for supplying power to one or more pairs of the first and second switches, and a second power source for supplying power to one or more pairs of the third and fourth switches. When command transmission fails even when using a kth third switch which is connected to (k+1)th switch and is one level upstream of the (k+1)th switch or using any port of the first sub-controller in a third path between the first sub-controller and the third switch to which the selected storage device is connected, the second controller transmits a command from a kth fourth switch or the second sub-controller to a (k+1)th fourth switch in a fourth path between the second sub-controller and the fourth switch to which the selected storage device is connected. When transmission of a command from the kth fourth switch or any port of the second sub-controller fails, the first or second controller determines that a failure has occurred in the second power source that supplies power to the (k+1)th third and fourth switches. When transmission of a command from the kth third switch or any port of the second sub-controller succeeds, the first or second controller determines that a failure related to a (k+1)th link on the third path has occurred.
- In
Embodiment 8, according to at least one of Embodiments 2 through 7, the storage system further has a shared memory that is shared by the first and second controllers. The first and second controllers have first and second processors respectively, and the first and second processors are connected to the first and second sub-controllers respectively. Either one of the first and second processors that is judged to have a power source failure writes power source failure information indicating the occurrence of a power source failure into the shared memory. When transmission of a command to the selected storage device fails, if the power source failure information is stored in the shared memory, then the first processor does not transmit a command, starting from an upstream side to a downstream side of a path between the first sub-controller and the switch to which the selected storage device is connected. - In Embodiment 9, according to at least one of Embodiments 2 through 8, each of the sub-controllers is a SAS (Serial Attached SCSI) controller, each of the ports is a phy, and each of the switches is a SAS expander.
- In
Embodiment 10, according to Embodiment 9, one narrow link, a two-wide port that is a collection of two narrow links, and a four-wide port that is a collection of four narrow links connect the first SAS controller to the first SAS expander, the first SAS expanders to each other, the second SAS controller to the second SAS expander, and the second SAS expanders to each other. - In
Embodiment 11, according toEmbodiment 1, when transmission of a command from the kth switch or any of the ports of the controller portion succeeds, the controller portion determines that a failure related to a (k+1)th link has occurred. - In
Embodiment 12, according to at least one ofEmbodiments 1 through 11, even when a failure occurs in a certain storage device out of the two or more storage devices, an interface, via which an access can be made from the controller portion to another storage device, connects the controller portion to each of the storage devices so that the control portion and each of the storage devices can communicate with each other by each of the switches. - In
Embodiment 13, according to at least one of Embodiments 2 through 10, the storage system is constituted by a base unit and an expansion unit that can be increased or decreased. The base unit has first and second controllers. Each of the expansion units has one or more pairs of first and second expanders, one or more power sources that supply power to the one or more pairs of first and second expanders, and two or more storage devices that are connected to both the first and second expanders. - Two or more embodiments out of the above-described
Embodiments 1 through 13 may be combined. - A storage system that requires neither a power source abnormality detection circuit nor a power source abnormality reporting cable is constructed. Specifically, for example, two storage device control boards (e.g., drive control boards), each of which has a switch (e.g., a SAS interface circuit (a SAS expander as a specific example)), are connected to two or more storage devices, each of which has two ports. Power sources (e.g., a pair of power sources configured by multiplexed power sources) for supplying power to the switches or storage devices are connected to these storage device control boards. Such elements are provided in each expansion unit that is a unit of expansion or contraction. The expansion units are connected in one or more levels to the base unit having the controller portion. A plurality of signal paths are constructed in the storage system, and the controller portion uses each of the signal paths to determine whether a failure has occurred in each signal path or whether a power source failure has occurred. Furthermore, when it is possible to restore a circuit to which the switches are connected in the controller portion (e.g., a SAS controller described hereinafter), automatic restoration is performed.
- Accordingly, wirings can be easily formed in each expansion unit. Also, power consumption in the expansion unit can be reduced. Furthermore, the number of parts in the expansion unit is reduced, whereby the number of objects to be maintained is reduced.
- Several embodiments of the present invention will be described hereinafter in detail with reference to the drawings.
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FIG. 2 shows an example of the configuration of a storage system according to a first embodiment of the present invention. - A
storage system 1001 is constituted by abase enclosure 101 and n number of expansion enclosures 103-1 through 103-n (n is an integer of 1 or more (in the example shown inFIG. 2 , n is an integer of 2 or more)). The n number of expansion enclosures 103-1 through 103-n are connected in series to thebase enclosure 101. - The
base enclosure 101 has duplex controllers (“CTL” hereinafter) 112A and 112B. TheCTL 112A (and 112B) has, for example, aRAID control portion 118A (and 118B) and a SAS (Serial Attached SCSI)controller 111A (and 111B). - The
RAID control portions memories memories RAID control portions MP 114A (and 114B) receives an I/O command (“volume I/O command” hereinafter) from an external device (a device existing outside thestorage system 1001, such as a host computer or other storage system), specifies, based on the RAID configuration information, two or more media drives corresponding to a logical volume to be specified by the volume I/O command, in response to the volume I/O command, and generates two or more I/O commands corresponding respectively to the specified two or more media drives (“drive I/O commands” hereinafter). TheMP 114A (and 114B) is connected communicably to theSAS controller 111A (and 111B) and instructs theSAS controller 111A (and 111B) to transmit each drive I/O command to a media drive that is the target of transmission of the drive I/O commands. TheMP 114A (and 114B) is also connected to the otherRAID control portion 118B (and 118A) and can instruct the otherRAID control portion 118B (and 118A) to issue the drive I/O commands to the media drive. - The
memory 122A (and 122B) has stored therein acontrol program 116A (and 116B) (in the drawing, “program” is abbreviated to “PG”). Hereinafter, when “computer program” is the subject of a description, processing is actually performed by a CPU that executes the computer program. - The
SAS controller 111A (and 111B) is, for example, a hardware circuit (e.g., an IC chip). TheSAS controller 111A (and 111B) transmits, in response to the instructions from theRAID control portions RAID control portions disk drive 111 specified by the drive I/O commands. TheSAS controller 111A (and 111B) has a plurality of phys. The phys each are a physical port. - Each of the expansion enclosures is described by taking the expansion enclosure 103-n as an example. The expansion enclosure 103-n has duplex AC/DC power sources (simply referred to as “power sources” hereinafter) 104A-n and 104B-n, duplex
drive control boards 105A-n and 105B-n, and m+1 number of media drives 107-n-0 through 107-n-m (m is an integer of 0 or more (in the illustrated example, m is an integer of 1 or more)). Thedrive control boards 105A-n and 105B-n have expanders 106A-n and 106B-n respectively. - The AC/
DC power sources 104A-n and 104B-n are connected to AC power sources (commercial power sources) 181A-n and 181B-n respectively, convert alternate currents supplied from theAC power sources 181A-n and 181B-n respectively into direct currents having predetermined voltage value and current value, and then output the direct currents to a power wire 151-n. The power wire 151-n is connected to, for example, theexpanders 106A-n and 106B-n or media drives 107-n-0 through 107-n-m. Therefore, power is supplied from thepower sources 104A-n and 104B-n to theexpanders 106A-n and 106B-n or media drives 107-n-0 through 107-n-m via the power wire 151-n. - The
drive control boards 105A-n and 105B-n are circuit boards for controlling the media drives 107-n-0 through 107-n-m and have, for example, theexpanders 106A-n and 106B-n, respectively. - The
expanders 106A-n and 106B-n each are a SAS interface circuit, i.e., a switch device. Theexpanders 106A-n and 106B-n each have the plurality of phys. The plurality of phys include first phys that are connected to the phys of the proximal and upstream expander, second phys that are connected to the phys of the proximal and downstream expander, and third phys that are connected to the media drives 107-n-0 through 107-n-m. Hereinafter, these phys are distinguished by the numbers that are assigned respectively to the phys (for example, the phy having a phy number “00” is described as “phy# 00”). Specifically, the first phys start with the phy number “0” (e.g.,phy# 00 through phy#03), the second phys are started with the phy number “1” (e.g.,phy# 10 through phy#13), and the third phys are started with the phy number “2” (e.g.,phy# 20 throughphy# 2m). Therefore, the numbers for the phys that are connected respectively to thephy# 00 throughphy# 03 of the proximal anddownstream expanders 106A-1 and 106B-1 also start with “1” (e.g.,phy# 10 through phy#13) in theSAS controllers - In the present embodiment, the
phy# 10 throughphy# 13 of theSAS controllers phy# 10 throughphy# 13 of theexpanders 106A-1 and 106B-1 by four-wide links 153A-1 and 153B-1. Similarly, thephy# 10 throughphy# 13 of the upstream expander are connected to thephy# 00 throughphy# 03 of the downstream expander by the four-wide link. Consequently, a first SAS signal path connected to theSAS controller 111A (a path that is configured by theexpanders 106A-1 through 106A-n connected in the form of a cascade and the four-wide links 153A-1 through 153A-n) and a second SAS signal path connected to theSAS controller 111B (a path that is configured by theexpanders 106B-1 through 106B-n connected in the form of a cascade and the four-wide links 153B-1 through 153B-n) are constructed. It should be noted that the four-wide link is a collection of four narrow links connecting four-wide ports (a collection of four phys). A single narrow link is a physical link that connects one phy to another. - The
phy# 20 throughphy# 2m of the bothexpanders 106A-n and 106B-n are connected to the media drives 107-n-0 through 107-n-m, respectively. Each of the media drives 107-n-0 through 107-n-m is a storage device and is a drive for various storage media, such as a hard disk, a DVD (Digital Versatile Disk), and a flash memory. The media drives 107-n-0 through 107-n-m each are a drive equipped with a SATA (Serial Attached SCSI) or SAS interface. Specifically, each of the media drives 107-n-0 through 107-n-m has two ports. One of the two ports is connected to thephy# 20 throughphy# 2m of one of the expanders, i.e., 106A-n, and the other port is connected to thephy# 20 throughphy# 2m of the other expander, i.e., 106B-n. It should be noted that if each media drive has only one port, a port on one side of a dongle (interface converter) that has two ports on the other side is connected to this media drive so that a media drive having two ports is obtained. - When the
abovementioned MP 114A (and 114B) finds the occurrence of a power source failure or other failure, theMP 114A transmits information on the type of the discovered failure or the location of the occurrence of the failure (“failure report information” hereinafter) to a SVP (Service Processor) 105. TheSVP 105 is a device (a computer, for example) that has, for example, a storage resource, a microprocessor and a display device. The microprocessor of theSVP 105 accumulates the received failure report information in the storage resource (a memory and/or a media drive, for example), and causes the display device to display, based on the failure report information, the location of the occurrence of a failure and the type of the failure. Also, the microprocessor of theSVP 105 transmits, to amaintenance center device 131, information that has the information on the failure occurrence location or an error code indicating the type of the failure (hereinafter, “service information” is abbreviated to “SIM” for convenience), on the basis of the failure report information. Themaintenance center device 131 is a device that collects the SIM from a plurality of SVPs corresponding to a plurality of storage systems (a server machine, for example). Themaintenance center device 131 outputs, based on the collected SIM, information indicating where and what kind of failure occurred (for example, themaintenance center device 131 displays or transmits the collected SIM to a predetermined terminal via a LAN (Local Area Network) (in this case, this terminal displays the information)). - The above has described the configuration of the
storage system 1001 according to the present embodiment. - A routing table is stored in the
memory 122A (122B) of theRAID control portion 118A (118B), an unshown memory of theSAS controller 111A (111B), and unshown memories of theexpanders 106A-1 through 106A-n (106B-1 through 106B-n). The routing table has recorded therein information elements indicating the destinations (destination information elements), for the devices existing downstream of a device having this table (the RAID control portion, SAS controller or expander that is referred to as “target device” hereinafter) and the devices that are connected directly (connected by a single narrow link) to the phys of the target device. The routing tables that are stored in the upstream devices have recorded therein a larger number of destination information elements, because the higher the device is located, the larger the number of lower devices are located. For this reason, the routing tables possessed by theRAID control portion 118A (and 118B) andSAS controller 111A (and 111B) have recorded therein the largest number of destination information elements (i.e., the destination information elements of all devices (expanders and media drives) on the lower side). The destination information element can be configured by, for example, the address according to the SAS standard (SAS address) of a device (an expander, for example) and the number for a phy. Thecontrol program 116A transmits a discovery command designating the phy of a desired expander, and thereby can acquire the destination information of a device connected to this phy. - Once the
control program 116A executed by theMP 114A transmits a connection command that designates a target SAS address (e.g., a SAS address that is the target of transmission of the dive I/O commands) from a phy selected from among the fourphys # 10 through #13 of theSAS controller 111A, the narrow links are ensured sequentially from the upstream side toward the downstream side. Once the narrow links are ensured up to the target SAS address, a connection is established in the first SAS signal path. When a connection is established, thecontrol program 116A transmits, for example, the drive I/O command as a desired command from the selected phy. Accordingly, data according to the drive I/O command is written to a target media drive via each of the ensured narrow links or read out from the target media drive via each of the ensured narrow links. - There are cases in which a failure related to the SAS signal paths (“SAS path failure” hereinafter) occurs in this series of flows. Examples of the SAS path failure include a drive access failure and a link failure. The drive access failure occurs when no response is returned even if a predetermined time elapses after issuance of the drive I/O commands, or when the written or read data is damaged (for example, when data detected in verification processing is discrepant). The link failure occurs when a connection is not established. The cause of the occurrence of the SAS path failure can be, for example, damaged narrow links, damaged phys to which the narrow links are connected, damaged expanders, and the like.
- As described above, when the SAS path failure occurs, an access cannot be made from the
SAS controller 111A to a desired target (e.g., an expander or a media drive) via the first SAS signal path. - However, the cause of this inaccessibility can be not only the SAS path failure but also a power source failure. For example, even if power is not supplied from either one of the
power sources 104A-n and 104B-n, power is continuously supplied from the other power source so that theexpanders 106A-n and 106B-n or the media drives 107-n-0 through 107-n-m can be activated. However, when a power source failure occurs (i.e., when power supply from thepower sources 104A-n and 104B-n is stopped due to a blackout or the like), the operation of theexpanders 106A-n and 106B-n or the media drives 107-n-0 through 107-n-m is stopped, because the power source for these devices are turned OFF (it should be noted that when thepower source 104A-n and/or thepower source 104B-n is down, they can be recovered by replacing them). - In the present embodiment, by performing the following failure check processing, which is devised focusing on the characteristics of the SAS, it is possible to determine whether the reason that the SAS path failure is detected is actually due to the occurrence of the SAS path failure or the occurrence of a power source failure. The failure check processing started by the detection of the SAS path failure in either one of the first and second SAS signal paths. Hereinafter,
FIG. 3 is used to describe the failure check processing that is started by the detection of the SAS path failure (in the drawing, “step” is abbreviated to “S”). It should be noted in the following descriptions that the SAS path failure is detected when transmitting a command that is targeted to the media drives connected to anexpander 106A-p in an expansion enclosure 103-p (p is an integer of n or lower). Moreover, in the following descriptions, the numbers indicating the levels of four-wide links or an expander (and/or the media drives connected to the expander) are expressed by an alphabet “k” (k is an integer of 1 or more). The alphabet k indicates at what level from theSAS controllers SAS controllers SAS controller wide link 153A-1 that connects theSAS controller 111A to the proximal (or the first)expander 116A-1, or indicates thefirst expander 116A-1 (or any of media drives 107-1-0 through 107-1-m). Also, k=n indicates the four-wide link 153A-n located at the lowermost stream or thenth expander 116A-n (or any of the media drives 107-n-0 through 107-n-m) located farthest from theSAS controller 111A (or located at the end of the cascade). - In
step 102, thecontrol program 116A selects one of the fourphys # 10 through #13 of theSAS controller 111A (selectsphy# 10, for example), and transmits, from the selected phy (phy# 10, for example), a command that designates a target in which k=1 (theproximal expander 106A-1 or any of the media drives connected to theexpander 106A-1). When transmission of this command succeeds and the SAS path failure is not detected during this command transmission (No in step 102), thecontrol program 116A executesstep 114. When the SAS path failure is detected again, thecontrol program 116A changes the phy of the command transmission source and retransmits a command (i.e., selects another phy of theSAS controller 111A and retransmits, from the selected phy, the command designating a target in which k=1). Thecontrol program 116A repeats the above-described processing until the SAS path failure is no longer detected when using any selected phy. If the SAS path failure is detected even when the command is retransmitted from any phy, that is, if the SAS path failure is detected with respect to all fourphys # 10 through #13 (YES in step 102), the processing proceeds to step 103. - In
step 103, thecontrol program 116A causes thecontrol program 116B to execute the same processing asstep 102 in the second SAS signal path. Specifically, thecontrol program 116B selects one phy from among fourphys # 10 through #13 of theSAS controller 111B, and transmits, from the selected phy, a command that designates a target in which k=1 (theproximal expander 106A-1 or any of the media drives connected to theexpander 106A-1). When the SAS path failure is not detected (No in step 103),step 114 is executed. When the SAS path failure is detected, thecontrol program 116B selects another phy and retransmits, from this phy, the command designating k=1. Thecontrol program 116B repeats the above-described processing until the SAS path failure is not detected when using any selected phy. If the SAS path failure is detected even when the command is retransmitted from any phy, that is, if the SAS path failure is detected with respect to all fourphys # 10 through #13 (YES in step 103), the processing proceeds to step 104 (at this moment, thecontrol program 116B can notify thecontrol program 116A of the result of the processing). - In
step 104, thecontrol program 116A (or thecontrol program 116B) determines that a power source failure has occurred in the expansion enclosure 103-1. The reason is considered that both of the four-wide links 153A-1 and 153B-1 in which k=1 are not available because power is no longer supplied from both of thepower sources 104A-1 and 104B-1 to both of theexpanders 106A-1 and 106B-1 in the expansion enclosure 103-1. - However, even if a power source failure has occurred, it is unknown in
step 104 whether this power source failure is a type of power source failure that can be restored in a short period of time (for example, a power source failure that is caused for a short period of time due to a brief blackout; this power source failure is referred to as “temporal power source failure” hereinafter) or a type of power source failure that requires a longer time to be restored than the temporal power source failure (for example, a power source failure whose failure occurrence location needs to be replaced, or a power source failure that is caused for a long period of time due to a long blackout; both power source failures are referred to as “normal power source failure” hereinafter). Therefore, which one of the power source failures has occurred is determined in the flow of the following processing. - Specifically, in
step 105, thecontrol program 116A retransmits the command designating a target in which k=1, from any phy selected from among the fourphys # 10 through #13 of theSAS controller 111A. - If this retransmission performed in
step 105 succeeds (YES in step 106), thecontrol program 116A determines that the temporal power source failure has occurred in the expansion enclosure 103-1 (step 107), and automatically restores theSAS controller 111A (step 108). Specifically, theSAS controller 111A is caused to execute initialization processing. In the initialization processing, for example, theSAS controller 111A transmits the discovery command for all of the phys of all of the expanders existing downstream, and thereby collects the destination information elements of the respective devices existing downstream, to construct the routing table. Thecontrol program 116A may write, into thememory 122A, the failure report information indicating that the temporal power source failure has occurred in the expansion enclosure 103-1, and may transmit the failure report information recorded in thememory 122A to theSVP 105 immediately or at any time (on a regular or irregular basis, for example). - If the retransmission performed in
step 105 fails (NO in step 106), thecontrol program 116A causes thecontrol program 116B to retransmit the command designating a target in which k=1, from any phy selected from among the fourphys # 10 through #13 of theSAS controller 111B (step 109). - If this retransmission performed in
step 109 succeeds (YES in step 110), thecontrol program 116A determines that the SAS path failure has occurred in the four-wide link 153A-1 in which k=1 (step 111). The reason is that the power source failure is not caused by the detection of the SAS path failure that starts this failure check processing, since the command can be transmitted to a target in which k=1 by using the other four-wide link 153B-1. - If the retransmission performed in
step 109 fails (NO in step 110), thecontrol program 116A determines that the normal power source failure has occurred in the expansion enclosure 103-1, writes the failure report information indicating the occurrence of the normal power source failure to thememory 122A, and transmits the failure report information to theSVP 105 immediately or at any time (step 112). The reason that the occurrence of the normal power source failure is determined is because the power source failure determined instep 104 is the type of power source failure that is not restored until the retry is carried out instep 105 orstep 109. - After
step 112, thecontrol program 116A waits for the recovery from the normal power source failure that has occurred in the expansion enclosure 103-1 (step 113), and the processing returns to step 102. - Substantially the same processings as those of the above-described
steps 102 through 113 are sequentially performed for the downstream expansion enclosure 103-k, until the failure is specified as the SAS path failure in the first SAS signal path or the power source failure in the expansion enclosure. It should be noted that the k is an integer of p−1 or lower in the failure check processing. The reason is that p is value related to the position of the target of command transmission that is the cause of detection of the SAS path failure. - In
step 114, thecontrol program 116A sends a command designating a target in which k=k+1 (2, in this case) from any one of phy selected from among fourphys # 10 through #13 of anexpander 106A-k of the expansion enclosure 103-k (k=1 in an initial state). When the SAS path failure is not detected (NO in step 114), k is incremented by 1 (step 117) if k=p−1 is not satisfied (NO in step 128), and step 114 is executed for the resulting incremented k. Even when k=p−1is satisfied, when the SAS path failure is not detected, then it is considered that the expansion enclosure 103-k has already recovered from the failure (for example, it is considered that the expansion enclosure 103-k has already recovered from the power source failure instep 113 or 127). - If the SAS path failure is not detected in
step 114, thecontrol program 116A retransmits the command designating k=k+1 from another phy selected from among the fourphys # 10 through #13 of theexpander 106A-k. Thecontrol program 116A repeats the above-described processing until the SAS path failure is no longer detected when using any of the phys. If the SAS path failure is detected even if the command is retransmitted from any of the phys, that is, if the SAS path failure is detected with respect to all of the fourphys # 10 through #13 (YES in step 114), the processing proceeds to step 115. - In
step 115, thecontrol program 116A causes thecontrol program 116B to execute the same processing as that ofstep 114 with respect to the second SAS signal path. When thecontrol program 116B does not detect the SAS path failure when using any phy selected from among the fourphys # 10 through #13 of anexpander 106B-k (NO in step 115), if k=p−1 is satisfied (YES in step 116), thecontrol program 116B determines that the SAS path failure related to the four-wide link 153A-p (i.e., k=k+1=p) has occurred (step 118). The reason is that the power source failure in the expansion enclosure 103-p is not caused by the detection of the SAS path failure that starts this failure check processing, since the command can be transmitted to a target in which k=p by using the other four-wide link 153B-p. - If k=p−1 is not satisfied after NO is obtained as a result of step 115 (NO in step 116), k is incremented by 1 (step 117), and then step 114 is executed for the resulting incremented k.
- When, in
step 115, the SAS path failure is detected in all of the fourphys # 10 through #13 of theexpander 106B-k (YES in step 115), steps 119 through 127 that are the same assteps 105 through 113 respectively are executed. - Specifically, in
step 119, thecontrol program 116A retransmits the command designating a target in which k=k+1, from any phy selected from among the fourphys # 10 through #13 of theexpander 106A-k. - If the retransmission performed in
step 119 succeeds (YES in step 120), thecontrol program 116A determines that the temporal power source failure has occurred in an expansion enclosure 103-(k+1) (step 121), and automatically restores theSAS controller 111A (step 122). - If the retransmission performed in
step 119 fails (NO in step 120), thecontrol program 116A causes thecontrol program 116B to retransmit the command designating a target in which k=k+1, from any phy selected from among the fourphys # 10 through #13 of theexpander 106B-k (step 123). - If the retransmission performed in
step 123 succeeds (YES in step 124), thecontrol program 116A determines that the SAS path failure related to the four-wide link 153A-k has occurred (step 125). - If the retransmission performed in
step 123 fails (NO in step 124), thecontrol program 116A determines that the normal power source failure has occurred in the expansion enclosure 103-(k+1), writes the failure report information indicating the occurrence of the normal power source failure to thememory 122A, and transmits the failure report information to theSVP 105 immediately or at any time (step 126). - After
step 126 is performed, thecontrol program 116A waits for the recovery from the normal power source failure that has occurred in the expansion enclosure 103-(k+1) (step 127), and the processing returns to step 102. - If it is determined in the above-described failure check processing that the normal power source failure has occurred, the failure report information indicating that the normal power source failure has occurred is transmitted to the
SVP 105 by thecontrol program 116A. For example, instep 112, thecontrol program 116 transmits, to theSVP 105, the failure report information indicating that the normal power source failure has occurred in the expansion enclosure 103-1, as shown inFIG. 4A . TheSVP 105 accumulates the failure report information in the unshown storage resource within theSVP 105, and displays a failure report screen 1051 on the basis of the accumulated failure report information. On the failure report screen 1051, objects representing thepower sources 104A-1 and 104B-1 within the expansion enclosure 103-1 are displayed with emphasis (for example, the colors within these objects blink). - Moreover, as shown in
FIG. 4B , theSVP 105 transmits the SIM having the error code indicating the normal power source failure and information indicating the expansion enclosure 103-1 to themaintenance center device 131, on the basis of the accumulated failure report information. Themaintenance center device 131 displays, on the basis of the SIM, information that indicates whether or not the normal power source failure has occurred in the expansion enclosure 103-1. - According to the first embodiment described above, the power source abnormality reporting cable is not required (in other words, a path for transmitting the failure report information can be used together with a path for transferring data exchanged between the media drives and the
controller 112A). Therefore, it is expected that wirings can be easily formed in the expansion enclosure. Furthermore, a special circuit for receiving a notification of a power source failure via the power source abnormality reporting cable is not required. - In addition, according to the first embodiment described above, the power source abnormality detection circuit is not required. Therefore, power consumption can be reduced.
- Furthermore, as described above, since the power source abnormality reporting cable and the power source abnormality detection circuit are not required, the number of parts can be reduced, whereby the number of targets to be maintained (or inspected, for example) can be reduced. Therefore, it is expected that the frequency of replacement of the parts or the frequency of occurrence of faulty wiring can be lowered.
- As described above, according to the first embodiment, neither the power source abnormality detection circuit nor the power source abnormality reporting cable is required, but it is difficult to simply apply this embodiment to a storage system in which media drives are connected to FC-ALs extending throughout a plurality of expansion enclosures (referred to as “FC-AL storage system” hereinafter). The reason is that, in a FC-AL, if a failure occurs in a certain section on the FC-AL (a media drive, for example), all of the media drives that are connected to this FC-AL (the media drives in each of the plurality of expansion enclosures) cannot be accessed via this FC-AL. In other words, if the power source abnormality detection circuit or the power source abnormality reporting cable are removed from the FC-AL storage system, the cause of inaccessibility to the media drives cannot be determined (it is impossible to specify whether the cause of inaccessibility is the occurrence of a power source failure in the expansion enclosures or the occurrence of a failure on the FC-AL).
- Therefore, in the first embodiment, the
storage system 1001 in which the media drives are connected to the expanders connected in the form of a cascade is adopted in place of the FC-AL, according to the SAS standard. According to the SAS standard, even if a failure occurs in a certain phy that connects the expanders, a desired media drive can be accessed by using another phy that connects the expanders. Specifically, even if a failure occurs in a certain phy that connects the expanders or in a media drive connected to the expanders, all of the media drives connected in the form of a cascade can be accessed, unlike the FC-AL. - In the first embodiment, by performing the above-described failure check processing using the characteristics of the SAS, the cause of detection of the SAS path failure can be determined (it is possible to specify whether the cause is a power source failure or a simply the SAS path failure (e.g., a trouble in the expanders)). Therefore, the occurrence of a power source failure can be discovered even without the power source abnormality detection circuit or the power source abnormality reporting cable as described above.
- The second embodiment of the present invention is described hereinafter. In such case, the differences with the first embodiment are mainly described, and descriptions of the similarities with the first embodiment are omitted or simplified (the same applies to a third embodiment and the subsequent embodiments described hereinafter).
-
FIG. 5 shows an example of the configuration of a storage system according to the second embodiment of the present invention. InFIG. 5 , the same numbers are applied to the elements that are substantially the same as those shown inFIG. 2 (the same applies to the third embodiment and the subsequent embodiments described hereinafter). - According to a
storage system 1002, a wide link that connects theSAS controller 111A (and 111B) and theexpander 106A-1 (and 106B-1) to each other and a wide link that connects the expanders each are a two-wide link. The two-wide link is a collection of two narrow links that connect two-wide ports (a collection of two phys). -
FIG. 6 shows a flow of failure check processing performed in the second embodiment of the present invention. - In the second embodiment, since the two-wide link is adopted in place of the four-wide link, steps 202, 203, 214 and 215 are performed in place of
steps FIG. 3 . Specifically, it is determined whether or not the SAS path failure is detected in all of the twophys # 10 and #11 instead of the fourphys # 10 through #13. -
FIG. 7 shows an example of the configuration of a storage system according to the third embodiment of the present invention. - According to a
storage system 1003, a link that connects theSAS controller 111A (and 111B) and theexpander 106A-1 (and 106B-1) to each other and a link that connects the expanders each are not the four-wide link but a single narrow link. -
FIG. 8 shows a flow of failure check processing performed in the third embodiment of the present invention. - In the third embodiment, since a narrow link is adopted in place of the four-wide link, steps 302, 303, 314 and 315 are performed in place of
steps FIG. 3 . Specifically, it is determined whether or not the SAS path failure is detected in onephy # 10 instead of the fourphys # 10 through #13. -
FIG. 9 andFIG. 10 each show an example of the configuration of a storage system according to the fourth embodiment of the present invention. Specifically,FIG. 9 shows a part of the configuration example of the storage system according to the fourth embodiment, andFIG. 10 shows a part of the rest of the configuration example of the storage system according to the fourth embodiment. - In a
storage system 1004, the configurations illustrated in the first embodiment are made redundant to configure the expansion enclosures 103-1 through 103-n as shown in the dotted frames shown inFIG. 9 andFIG. 10 . Specifically, for example, the expansion enclosure 103-n has expanders 106C-n and 106D-n in addition to theexpanders 106A-n and 106B-n, and power sources 104C-n and 104D-n in addition to thepower sources 104A-n and 104B-n. Power is supplied from the power sources 104C-n and 104D-n to the expanders 106C-n and 106D-n. The RAID group is configured by one or more media drives shown in one of the dotted frames and one or more media drives shown in the other dotted frame. - The first SAS signal path and the second SAS signal path are made redundant. Specifically, the
SAS controller 111A has eightphys # 10 through #17. The first SAS signal path is connected to one four-wide port (a collection of fourphys # 10 through #13) of these eight phys, and a third SAS signal path is connected to another four-wide port (a collection of fourphys # 14 through #17). Similarly, theSAS controller 111B has eightphys # 10 through #17. The second SAS signal path is connected to one four-wide port (a collection of fourphys # 10 through #13) of these eight phys, and a fourth SAS signal path is connected to another four-wide port (a collection of fourphys # 14 through #17). The third SAS signal path is configured by four-wide links 153C-1 through 153C-n and the expanders 106C-1 through 106C-n, and the fourth SAS signal path is configured by four-wide links 153D-1 through 153D-n and theexpanders 106D-1 through 106D-n. - In the third embodiment, when the SAS path failure is detected in the first SAS signal path, the
control program 116A executes thesteps following step 102 shown inFIG. 3 . When the SAS path failure is detected in the third SAS signal path, thecontrol program 116A executes thesteps following step 502 shown inFIG. 11 .Steps 502 through 528 shown inFIG. 11 correspond tosteps 102 through 128 shown inFIG. 3 , respectively. The difference is thatFIG. 11 illustrates a flow of processings for the third and fourth SAS signal paths, whileFIG. 3 illustrates a flow of processings for the first and second SAS signal paths. Furthermore, in the present embodiment, it can be distinguished whether a failure is a power source failure that is caused by failures of both thepower sources 104A (104-n, for example) and 104B (104B-n, for example) (“first power source failure” hereinafter) or a power source failure that is caused by failures of both the power sources 104C (104C-n, for example) and 104D (104D-n, for example) (“second power source failure” hereinafter). Specifically, for example, when the normal power source failure is found in the expansion enclosure 103-n with respect to the first and second SAS signal paths, thecontrol program 116A includes, into the failure report information, the fact that this normal power source failure is the first normal power source failure caused by the failures of both thepower sources 104A-n and 104B-n. When the normal power source failure is found in the expansion enclosure 103-n with respect to the third and fourth SAS signal paths, thecontrol program 116A includes, into the failure report information, the fact that this normal power source failure is the second normal power source failure caused by the failures of both the power sources 104C-n and 104D-n. -
FIG. 12 shows an example of the configuration of a storage system according to the fifth embodiment of the present invention. - According to a
storage system 1005, aswitch device 81A (and 81B) is interposed between theMP 114A (and 114B) and theSAS controller 111A (and 111B) in thecontroller 112A (and 112B). Thefirst switch device 81A is connected to thesecond MP 114B and thesecond switch device 81B is connected to thefirst MP 114A. Therefore, thefirst MP 114A, for example, can issue a command to thefirst SAS controller 111A via thefirst switch device 81A and can also issue a command to thesecond SAS controller 111B via thesecond switch device 81B. - The
base enclosure 101 is equipped with a sharedmemory 83 that is shared by the twocontrollers control programs memory 83 is caused to record powersource failure information 85 that indicates at which level k of the expansion enclosure 103-k the normal power source failure has occurred. When the SAS path failure is detected, the other one of thecontrol programs source failure information 85 is recorded in the sharedmemory 83 before starting the failure check processing, and, if recorded, waits for the recovery from the normal power source failure that has occurred in the expansion enclosure 103-k corresponding to the level k indicated by the powersource failure information 85, without performing the failure check processing. -
FIG. 13 shows a flow of processing performed when the SAS path failure is detected according to the fifth embodiment of the present invention. - When the SAS path failure is detected, the
control program 116A checks whether or not the powersource failure information 85 is recorded in the shared memory 83 (step 640). If it is determined that the powersource failure information 85 is recorded (YES in step 640), thecontrol program 116A executes step 641 (waits for the recovery from the normal power source failure that has occurred in the expansion enclosure 103-k corresponding to the level k indicated by the power source failure information 85). If it is determined that the powersource failure information 85 is not recorded, thecontrol program 116A performs processing subsequent to step 102. - In
steps control program 116B but thecontrol program 116A issues a command from theSAS controller 111B via thesecond switch 81B. - Also, the
control program 116A clears (deletes, for example) the powersource failure information 85 after (or subsequent to)steps 107 and 121 (steps 600 and 620). - Moreover, after (or subsequent to)
steps control program 116A writes the powersource failure information 85 that indicates that the normal power source failure has occurred in the expansion enclosure 103-k (k=1 instep 112, and k=n in step 126) (steps 610 and 630). - Several embodiments of the present invention were described above, but these embodiments are merely examples to describe the present invention, and the scope of the present invention is not limited by these embodiments. The present invention can be implemented by various other embodiments.
- For example, regarding a K-wide link (K is an integer of 2 or more), the above has described the examples where K is 4 and 2, but K may be other integers.
- Furthermore, for example, in the above embodiments a plurality of expanders corresponding to a plurality of levels respectively may be provided in one expansion enclosure (specifically, the expansion enclosure 103-1, for example, may have the
expanders 106A-2 and 106B-2 in addition to theexpanders 106A-1 and 106B-1). In this case, in the expansion enclosure, a pair ofpower sources expanders expanders memories control programs phys # 10 through #13 of the kth expander to the (k+1)th expander, thecontrol programs - Moreover, for example, the expanders may control which phy to use to transmit a command to a downstream expander, on the basis of the ID (World Wide Name (WWN), for example) of the phy which is specified from a command transmitted from the upstream side and through which this command is transmitted.
- In addition, for example, in each of the embodiments described above, automatic restoration may be performed not only on the
SAS controller 111A but also on theSAS controller 111B. In a method for this automatic restoration, for example, theSAS controller 111A and/or theSAS controller 111B transmits the discovery command from its phy on a regular basis (or retries the transmission if the transmission fails), and if the transmission succeeds, theSAS controller 111A and/or theSAS controller 111B can be restored in units of how the phys are disposed.
Claims (20)
1. A storage system comprising:
a base enclosure including a first controller;
an expansion enclosure including a first switch, one or more storage devices coupled to the first switch; and
a plurality of first links between the first controller and the first switch;
wherein the first controller is configured to perform transmission of a command targeted to the one or more storage devices via each of the first links,
wherein if the transmission of the command fails via all of the first links, the first controller is configured to determine that a failure occurs in the expansion enclosure.
2. The storage system according to claim 1 , wherein if the transmission of the command fails via part of the first links, the controller is configured to determine that a failure occurs on the part of the first links.
3. The storage system according to claim 1 , wherein the first switch is a first SAS expander.
4. The storage system according to claim 1 , wherein, in response to the determination that the failure has occurred in the expansion enclosure, the first controller transmits a failure report that indicates the failure to a SVP (Service Processor).
5. The storage system according to claim 1 , wherein the first controller writes information related to the failure in the expansion enclosure to a memory.
6. The storage system according to claim 1 , wherein the first controller transmits the command targeted to the storage device via each of the first links in response to a failure of a drive I/O command from the first controller targeted to a storage device from the one or more storage devices.
7. The storage system according to claim 1 , wherein
the first controller transmits a drive I/O command to a storage device from the one or more storage devices;
if transmission has failed for the drive I/O command transmitted by the first controller, the first controller determines whether failure information is stored in a memory; and
the first controller transmits the command targeted to the storage device via each of the first links if the failure information is not stored in the memory.
8. The storage system according to claim 1 , wherein
the first controller includes a first SAS (Serial Attached SCSI) controller that includes one or more physical ports;
the first switch is a SAS interface circuit that includes physical ports;
the links in the plurality of first links are implemented as links from the physical ports in the first SAS controller to the physical ports in the first switch.
9. The storage system according to claim 8 , wherein the one or more physical ports in the first SAS controller consist of four physical ports, the links from the plurality of first links consist of four links, and each link from the first links is implemented as a single narrow link between one of the physical ports in the first SAS controller and one of the physical ports in the first switch.
10. The storage system accordingly to claim 8 , wherein the one or more physical ports in the first SAS controller consist of four physical ports, the links from the plurality of first links consist of two links, and each link from the first links is implemented as a two-wide link between two of the physical ports in the first SAS controller and two of the physical ports in the first switch.
11. A method for use in a storage system for detecting occurrence of a power failure, the method comprising:
providing a base enclosure including a first controller;
providing an expansion enclosure including a first switch, and one or more storage devices coupled to the first switch;
providing a plurality of first links between the first controller and the first switch;
the first controller transmitting a command targeted to the one or more storage devices via each of the first links, and
if the transmission of the command fails via all of the first links, the first controller determining that a failure occurs in the expansion enclosure.
12. The method according to claim 11 , wherein if the transmission of the command fails via part of the first links, the controller determining that a failure occurs on the part of the first links.
13. The method according to claim 11 , wherein the first switch is a first SAS expander.
14. The method according to claim 11 , wherein, in response to the determining that the failure has occurred in the expansion enclosure, the first controller portion transmitting a failure report that indicates the power source failure to a SVP (Service Processor).
15. The method according to claim 11 , wherein the first controller writing information related to the failure in the expansion enclosure to a memory.
16. The method according to claim 11 , wherein the first controller portion transmitting the command targeted to the storage device via each of the first links in response to a failure of a drive I/O command from the first controller targeted to a storage device from the one or more storage devices.
17. The method according to claim 11 , wherein
the first controller transmitting a drive I/O command to a storage device from the one or more storage devices;
if transmission has failed for the drive I/O command transmitted by the first controller, the first controller determining whether failure information is stored in a memory; and
the first controller transmitting the command targeted to the storage device via each of the first links if the failure information is not stored in the memory.
18. The method according to claim 11 , wherein
the first controller includes a first SAS (Serial Attached SCSI) controller that includes one or more physical ports;
the first switch is a SAS interface circuit that includes physical ports; and
the links in the plurality of first links are implemented as links from the physical ports in the first SAS controller to the physical ports in the first switch.
19. The method according to claim 18 , wherein the one or more physical ports in the first SAS controller consist of four physical ports, the links from the plurality of first links consist of four links, and each link from the first links is implemented as a single narrow link between one of the physical ports in the first SAS controller and one of the physical ports in the first switch.
20. The method according to claim 18 , wherein the one or more physical ports in the first SAS controller consist of four physical ports, the links from the plurality of links consist of two links, and each link from the first links is implemented as a two-wide link between two of the physical ports in the first SAS controller and two of the physical ports in the first switch.
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Also Published As
Publication number | Publication date |
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US8037362B2 (en) | 2011-10-11 |
JP2009064067A (en) | 2009-03-26 |
US8312325B2 (en) | 2012-11-13 |
US20100325484A1 (en) | 2010-12-23 |
US20090063901A1 (en) | 2009-03-05 |
JP4982304B2 (en) | 2012-07-25 |
US7809983B2 (en) | 2010-10-05 |
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